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Elliott gestures towards her bottle of Smirnoff. ‘Another?’
‘Please,’ says Jennie. Anything to stop feeling so awkward.
‘Good idea,’ says Lottie, putting her hand on Elliott’s arm and giving it a squeeze. ‘Thanks, darling.’
As Elliott heads to the bar, Jennie manages to get a question in. ‘There are so many people from school here. You must be in touch with loads of our year group?’
Lottie gives a little smile, clearly pleased with the compliment. ‘I’m only in contact with them through the Class of ’94 Facebook group really, although I catch up with Elliott and Rob from time to time.’
Rob Marwood was another of their friendship group. Super intelligent, but under a lot of pressure from his parents to get the best grades at every subject, Rob could be funny, moody, and rather off-the-wall. He was obsessed with Flatliners and wore a big grey coat like the one Kiefer Sutherland had in the film, even in the height of summer. When he’d told them he was applying to study medicine at uni, Jennie had been pretty sure he’d made his career choice based on that film.
‘Is Rob coming?’ asks Jennie, although what she really wants to ask is whether Hannah’s coming tonight and whether Lottie has had any contact with her.
Lottie shakes her head. ‘No, he’s on another one of his luxury holidays. Jammy git, he’s always off somewhere exotic or other. I suppose that’s one of the perks being a super successful anaesthesiologist.’
‘Here you go,’ says Elliott, returning from the bar and handing both Jennie and Lottie a cold Smirnoff. ‘You talking about Rob?’
‘Of course,’ Lottie replies, rolling her eyes, but smiling with it. ‘It must be tough having all that money to spend.’
Elliott shrugs. ‘We’re not doing so bad ourselves, and money isn’t everything, is it, Jennie?’
She opens her mouth to agree, but Lottie cuts her off.
‘So says the man who just finished renovating an old chapel into a home. I drove past it the other day on the way to hot yoga. That place must have cost you a fortune.’
‘Not a fortune, but it was a bit of a stretch.’ Elliott looks bashful. ‘We felt it was important that the restoration was done as sympathetically as possible. It’s our home now, and we wanted the community to be happy with what we’d done.’
‘Where is it?’ asks Jennie, taking a sip of her drink.
‘In Whitchurch,’ says Elliott. ‘The station is just a couple of minutes’ walk away, so it’s handy for travelling to work. And Luke, my husband, works from home, so he can live anywhere.’
‘Nice,’ says Jennie. Whitchurch, a small town about fifteen miles away, is one of the most sought-after and expensive places in the area.
‘And how’s baby?’ says Lottie. ‘How long is it now?’
Elliott grins. ‘Just over a month. We’re so excited, but nervous too. There seems so much to prepare. Every time I come home from the lab Luke has ordered a whole load more baby stuff.’
‘Congratulations,’ says Jennie. She imagines Elliott will be an amazing dad. ‘I’m really happy for you.’
‘Thanks, I appreciate that.’ He holds her gaze and reaches out to give her hand a squeeze. ‘It really is great to see you, Jennie.’
‘It is,’ says Lottie, the over-brightness of her voice seemingly at odds with the rictus smile on her face. ‘It’s been so long. What happened to you, Jennie? It seemed like you just vanished after we got our A level results.’
Jennie drops her eyes to hide her anger and discomfort. That’s not how she remembers it at all. At first, after Hannah had disappeared, she’d joined forces with Lottie and they’d spent hours together designing and photocopying ‘missing’ posters. They’d gone around town putting them up in shops and on community noticeboards and lampposts. They’d even spent a couple of weeks posting them through as many letterboxes as they could. But nothing had worked. And when, almost a month later, an eyewitness came forward saying they’d seen Hannah at the train station the night she disappeared, the police decided that Hannah was just another teenage runaway fleeing a troubled home.
The news had broken Jennie. She’d been certain Hannah had been taken against her will, that she had been on the way to meet her at the bus stop as they’d planned. That she’d never leave her without saying goodbye. When the evidence disproved that, Jennie’s world imploded. She started to believe that maybe Hannah had chosen to leave without her, and she couldn’t cope. The rest of the summer passed in a daze of grief and self-imposed isolation. She barely got out of bed and she listened to Metallica’s Black Album, especially ‘Nothing Else Matters’, on repeat. By the time Jennie had felt able to venture out again, Lottie and the others had become distant, distracted by university and new relationships, until their friendship with Jennie seemed entirely forgotten. It was as if Hannah had been the glue that held them together, and without her their friendship group failed to function.
Jennie realises that Lottie is staring at her, still waiting for an answer to her question. ‘I’ve always been here. I never left.’
There’s an awkward pause in the conversation. Lottie gives Jennie another forced smile. Elliott looks sympathetic but unsure how to respond. Jennie fiddles with the label on her bottle, peeling it in thin strips from the glass. Behind them the conversations and laughter continue. On the speakers, Stiltskin’s ‘Inside’ fades and Spin Doctors’ ‘Two Princes’ takes its place. Jennie swallows hard. Hannah loved this song.
It’s Lottie who finally breaks the silence. ‘Have you heard from her?’
‘Not once. You?’ says Jennie.
‘No, although there have been plenty of sightings reported on the Class of ’94 page, and even that grainy photo of her taken in Ibiza a few years ago.’
So Lottie’s just as much out of the loop. Jennie tries not to let the disappointment crush her. She knows about the sightings, and she saw the photo Lottie’s talking about, although it was so out of focus it was impossible to tell if it really was Hannah or just some other flame-haired woman.
